Tether Treasury Holds Nearly 30% of Total USDT Supply

UPDATE (25 October 13:25 EDT): This article has been updated to include Tether’s recent redemption statements.

The “Tether Treasury’s” USDT wallet has rapidly risen up the ranks to become the top holder of the stablecoin, suggesting that some market participants may have managed to successfully withdraw their holdings from circulation. The removal of roughly 28.5 percent of the total number of Tether in circulation has coincided with a significant depletion in the amount of USDT held in two wallets separately owned by Binance and Huobi.

Largest Holdings Shift to Tether Treasury

The Tether Treasury wallet has grown from being the fifth-largest store of the currency as of Oct. 7, when it held nearly 186.7 million USDT, to becoming the largest USDT wallet at present, with almost 916.7 million USDT. The growth of the wallet’s contents appears to have coincided with a 26.6 percent reduction in the contents of the largest of two wallets belonging to Binance. That wallet held the largest Tether balance of 808.7 million USDT as of Oct. 17, but is now ranked second with 593.6 million USDT.

A wallet once identified as the largest Tether wallet, owned by Huobi, has also seen a significant reduction in its holdings. On Oct. 7, it was the second-largest store of the currency at 249.3 million USDT. However, as of this writing, the wallet holds just 29.18 million USDT, putting it at 12th place.

Another Tether wallet owned by Huobi, currently the exchange’s largest, has not changed in value, with 209.5 million USDT. It has crept up the rankings of the biggest Tether wallets from fourth place to third place at present. Additionally, Tether’s official Twitter account explained the company had destroyed 500 million tethers on Oct. 24. The Twitter announcement leads to a blog post, which details that over the past week, Tether has “redeemed a significant amount of USDT from the circulating supply of tokens.” The company states there are approximately 466 million USDT remaining in the Tether treasury wallet.

USDT/USD Pairing Appears to
Stabilize Following Capitulation

Kraken’s Tether wallet, which was the seventh-largest on the list with almost 47.8 million USDT as of Oct. 19, now ranks ninth with 43.9 million USDT. Just 12 days prior, on Oct. 7, the wallet was the 22nd-largest holding on the list, with 21.6 million USDT.

Recent sizable inflows to the Kraken wallet had sparked theories that a major Tether holder was contemplating a sudden exodus from the USDT markets, with Kraken hosting the strongest USDT/USD pairing by volume. While the wallet has since been depleted by nearly 4 million USDT, the price of Tether has remained relatively stable, ranging between $0.965 and $0.98 over the past week. Despite this, there were $11.25 million worth of unfilled cumulative USDT sell orders priced below $1.00 as of this writing, indicating that many market participants are willing to accept losses to liquidate their holdings.

What is your response to the shifting holdings of the largest Tether wallets? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Images courtesy of Shutterstock

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Samuel Haig is a journalist and entrepreneur who has been completely obsessed with bitcoin and cryptocurrency since 2012. Samuel lives in Tasmania, Australia, where he attended the University of Tasmania and majored in Political Science, and Journalism, Media & Communications. Samuel has written about the dialectics of decentralization, and is also a musician and kangaroo riding enthusiast.

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